Piano Teachers - a few questions, please!

[ClenchedBottom]

Hi, thanks for reading.

Dd is 6, 7 in July. She's recently shown a real interest in learning to play the piano 'properly' (rather than experimenting!).

She's got a beginners' book, the Pauline Hall 'Tunes for 10 Fingers' that a relative gave her. I guess my questions are : -

1 Is the Pauline Hall book a good one to use or not?
2 Am I optimistic in planning to teach her myself for a while? - I have Grade 7, but from many years ago. I'd hope that I could teach her for a while to get her going, not planning to steal anyone's trade!

Would be really grateful for any advice, thanks. She needs to start from the very beginning as doesn't play the recorder or anything - her school have dropped this for Y2 this year

Yes Pauline Hall is good. I have been using her Piano Time book to teach dd, she was about 7 when she started. I think the 10 fingers book is aimed at slightly younger children around age 5-7 wheras Piano Time is probably aimed at around 7-9 years.

Dd could already read a little music when she started. I like you did Grade 8 many moons ago and I have been fine so far teaching dd but from experience it can be difficult. My grandmother was a piano teacher and I wouldn;t lether teach me. Howevre dd doesn;t seem to mind my teaching style and the fact that I am ultra pernickety about some things you would usually let go at that stage.

I'd start and se ehow it goes. The reason I wanted to teach dd myself rather than send her for lessons is that she already does a LOT of dance and drama with exams and I didn't want the pressure of her having to practice if she ran out of time/the other things took over.

Thank you IoS, that's really helpful.

I think I'm like you, in that I want DD to have the opportunity to enjoy learning without things being too pressured, as she is still young really.
I think we'll keep going with the 'Ten Fingers' for the moment, as it's helping her to learn to read music too which is obviously both v. helpful and transferable!

Gentle bump for any more comments/experiences?

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Bumping this as I want to start to teach DS1 (5yo) now. I started at four and went on to study music at Uni. Just dug out my books from 1979 (ouch) and they look so dull. Is Pauline Hill the way to go these days then?

I just went to the local music shop (we are lucky that we still have one) browsed the books and the Piano Time one seemed like a nice approach. Dd's Year One teacher teaches piano and she uses those books too apparently.

5 is very young so the Ten Fingers one would be more suitable.

A far cry from my 'Progressive Primer for the Pianoforte'

I also learnt from Michael Aaron, wonder if they are still around.

ds started with tunes for 10 fingers (age 7/8) & then moved to more tunes for 10 fingers & never worried that they might be too 'young'. He still remembers some of the pictures - like the little mouse under your bridge from it. I think those kinds of visuals work well, just as long as your child doesn't think they are too babyish.

Ds's first piano teacher wasn't that well qualified (grade 6 I think), but when he changed teacher after grade 3 his new teacher thought he had been well taught & had good technique, so qualifications aren't everything in the early stages. Teaching your own child is a whole new can of worms & might or might not work depending on personalities.

I started my DC off on piano before moving to a "proper" teacher. I did it mainly to save money to be honest but it worked perfectly fine. The main reason I changed was that I wasnt confident enough that I would be able to teach beyond the initial "getting started" stage.

The teacher we have now is brilliant and said we had made a good start (we got to Grade 1 stage before switching). We used that 10 fingers book as well as a couple of others from our local music shop - the man in the shop was very helpful - I think in those specialist shops they are often quite knowledgable.

I think it's true that some children are better not taught by their mum/dad etc: one of my DC was okay with it, the other less so. Our current teacher who is really good with children said that she had been unable to teach her own DC and they had learned from someone else.

Pauline Hall book is fine if mum or dad are musical and supervise practise. I use Hal Leonard Piano method as I usually don't have either of these conditions at home and it breaks it out into smaller steps. Not all children can cope with learning 10 notes on a couple of pages, and many of them just learn C and then follow the finger numbers which creates problems not too soon after as there are 7 notes and only 5 fingers.